Furyans
by fee-kh
Summary: Longshot crossover exploring the origins of species.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy or the Chronicles of Riddick. Am just playing around there. Will tidy up before I leave. Quotes as attributed.

A/N: This is the prologue to another one of my rambling thoughts. I know this is not germaine with some of the canon from the films, especially regarding the fate of Earth. So in the interest of open-heartedness, I am treating Earth a little like Earth-that.-was.

Anyway, here it is, hope you like it. Let me know if the tone is okay, as I have no-one to talk things over with here. My flatmates say fan fiction is not real writing. Morons. Ah well the extra salt I 'accidentally' spilled into their soup made me feel better.

**Furyans**

Where there is no vision, the people perish... - Proverbs 29:18

The council had been right to fear the slayer. To fear what happened if she got too powerful, too secure in herself. Lived too long. Procreated.  
Elizabeth Ann Summers-Giles, known a long time before as simply Buffy, watched with a heavy heart as the last of her kind boarded the ship that would take them out into the great vacuum of space, to a destination as yet unknown.  
She was left to turn off the lights and lock the doors, metaphorically speaking. Oldest, and most trusted of her kind, last surviving member, bar one, of the group that had sealed off the threat of the hellmouths for all time. The remnants of the once most powerful governments on Earth had humbly asked her to ensure that none of the undesirables left the planet they had so ignorantly destroyed. Fools the lot of them. After watching for centuries as her family became larger, became more, blending the light and the dark, did they honestly expect her to sit by and watch any innocent die, demon or human?  
As always when thinking about the folly of men, her thoughts drifted back to those long forgotten times when she had been a part of a family, just a girl who happened to have the weight of the world placed squarely on her shoulders.  
Looking back now the decades after the closing of the Hellmouth in Sunnydale, first of many, had been the happiest of her life. She had watched as her family flourished. Xander had married a slayerette, the two of them having the first of many slayer children. From the beginning it had been apparent that these children had been something more, stronger than their year mates, faster, with better reflexes. As more and more slayers had the opportunity to have children, it became clearer. The council had not wanted the slayers to have children, for the children always held something of the slayer's power. Fortunately it usually came along with a strong sense of justice and the need to protect the innocent. If it didn't, well then the new council eventually came up with ways to deal with that, too.  
As the slayers progeny intermarried with other humans and occasionally the odd demon halfbreed, other attributes started to come forward. Exceptional tenacity, the absolute ability to not rest nor falter till a mission had been accomplished.

The armies of the world loved it, although the slayer children only followed orders if they truly believed in them. They were an independent lot, so it had not been surprising, that when the world went to hell in a way they could not stop, acid rain and radiation raining from the skies they had been the last to throw in the towel, to acknowledge that the world could not be saved this time. And so they had gathered their families and looked for a new world to live in, leaving the mother of their line behind as a last safeguard.  
They had long been preceded by the other breed that had come forth from the council's line. Willow, the most powerful white witch on the face of the Earth had only become more so as the years went by, moving closer and closer to the earth mother herself, attuning herself to the elements.

It had come as no surprise when her four children showed themselves similarly talented, each manifesting the powers inherent in an element. And as the years passed, that line moved closer and closer to the element they were most closely attuned to, until finally after centuries had passed they almost became what they represented. They had been the first to leave, no longer able to take the destruction humankind was raining down on each other and themselves. Elizabeth mourned that day still, but knew that one day they would all reunite.

However now was not that day. The ship holding her family was already well on its way to the end of the galaxy and whatever lay beyond, now it was time to help the others. The demons and halfdemons, mostly harmless, left behind, because they did not fit in well enough. Could not pass for human. Elizabeth and her family, ever the protectors of the innocent, had thought of this too. Ships were hidden across the face of the earth, waiting to take on these last remnants of earth's population and bear them off into an entirely different area of space than the humans had taken. It was better that way.

It took weeks to get everybody off the planet, making sure that the truly evil were either vanquished or left behind. This time she really was alone as she watched the last of the demon arks leave Earth, not even she knowing where they might head.

With a last look around, Elizabeth boarded her ship, arming herself against the heartache of leaving the only home she had ever known with no real hope of a new one. Her once green and vibrant Earth now shone dully in shades of amber and grey, destroyed by humanity's arrogance. Seas no longer able to support life, forests long gone, flora and fauna in its dying stages. The world she had sacrificed for over and over again, shedding blood and tears, the world her loved ones had again and again laid their lives down for, gone in a single act of madness. All gone.

A single tear rolled down her cheek, washing away the dust of her travails. Elizabeth shook herself and checked that the stasis system was in working order. It was time to go and catch up with her family. Maybe one day she would be able to come back. After all she had nothing but time.


	2. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Quotes as credited. And I don't own Buffy and Riddick. See Prologue for full disclaimer.A/N: And there I go again. Thousand things to finish and this just will not leave my head. Maybe I'm just inspired by the fantastic stuff appearing here this month. As I do not have a beta feel free to tell me when the grammar is off or if there is a word missing.

Chapter One

Nothing endures but change. - Heraclitus, about 500 B.C

She was lost. Lost in endless space. The irony of that statement however wasn't. Dimly she remembered a time when she had had friends and family, grasping helplessly at fractured memory, the stasis technology allowing for nothing more than that. It slowed down body and mind, until a minute stretched to an hour and a heartbeat took an eon to complete. But thought processes went on and in the absence of external stimuli, sorted through the memories of a lifetime longer than any other.

* * *

"I'm very sorry Miss Summers." The doctor's voice was bland, as if he had fulfilled this duty too often to really convey any emotion bar indifferent, professional regret.

"I assure you that he went fast. Probably didn't feel a thing." The doctor's voice blended with that of another from years before. "She probably just felt a little faint. And never woke up."

Buffy nodded at the appropriate moments, muttering quiet affirmatives as she listened to the man drone on and on about a patient he would not even remember tomorrow. Didn't even know he owed his life to several times over. Wouldn't believe it if he did.  
Rupert Giles was dead. Died quietly in his sleep and there was nothing anybody could do about it.

* * *

The ship hurtled on, following the faint traces of the ships gone before. Travelling through the airless desert between the stars, ever following, leaving Earth far behind to its fate.

* * *

She couldn't remember the child's name. Why couldn't she remember her name? She wasn't that old. Frustration raced through her, betrayed by a severe frown marring the wrinkle fee skin of her forehead.  
"Madam, we think we have found the cause."  
Sarcasm reared its ugly head.  
"You mean why I have to watch everybody I love die and nothing changes for me?"  
The child, and how could she call her anything else than that when, despite appearances, she was so much older. So much older that she had seen this one's grandfather be born, live and die. The child flushed, clearly shocked with her not quite patient's choice of words.  
"Yes, that." The flush went deeper. "Our wiccan department has researched your 'condition'" And hadn't they taught her beautifully how to paraphrase the ugly truth. "carefully and has come to the conclusion that a combination of the blood you shared with your sister, the venerable key, and the magics of the night you were resurrected are responsible for your um-"  
"Immortality?" She snarked, one eyebrow raised in a manner not seen, let alone recognised for centuries.  
The child flushed once more, clearly unhappy with being stuck with this no doubt onerous duty. Buffy refused to go easy on her, that is what you got for being the most senior watcher in the council, tenth head of the council since the death of Rupert Giles. Her explanation made sense though in a strange way, if her blood had been enough to close the portal, then it was par for the course that it would affect any and every spell cast on her.  
The council head shifted in her seat. "There is something else." A look almost akin to sympathy bled into her eyes.  
"You mean apart from the whole watch your family die. And their families and the children of their families and their children?"  
"Yes. You must have wondered over the years."  
"Wondered what?"  
"Why you alone remained childless?"

* * *

As the ship moved on through space, computers busily mapped star systems, time passed, background radiation. Standard operating procedures, all programmed prior to departure. Not that it was really necessary, the bigger ships ahead had charted this region of space, too. Weeks in advance to the tiny ship following in their wakes.

* * *

"Auntie Buffy, lookit me!"  
She watched with surprise akin to awe as Willow's youngest child briefly faded from view, snuck across the room and reappeared by her side.  
A big show was made. Buffy jumped with a squeal, that had the child giggling and wriggling on the floor like a little puppy, happy to have performed a trick.  
"Brisa, that's incredible." She plucked the child from the ground and dangled her upside down, all the while tickling her and pretending not to hear the laughed pleas of uncle.  
"Mummy says, its cause I'm mental."  
Buffy laughed at the child's serious expression, choosing not to correct her instead falling back into vociferous claims of pride in this the baby of her extended family.

* * *

Months had passed in the real world, although at the speeds the ship was travelling, time was a fluid concept, bending and stretching out of all proportion to the units laid down in a different galaxy. Slowly the ship with its lonesome cargo caught up with the bigger, slower ships. Data bursts passing back and forth, unknown by its human cargo, locked as they were in stasis.

* * *

The Summers girls stood alone on the hillside overlooking the now extensive graveyard servicing the council's needs. Down below they watched as another of their family was carried to his well-deserved rest. Andrew, the youngest of the original Scoobies had lasted the longest. No surprise there. For those who remembered him when he was young, the changes time had wrought had been astounding. The young man, painfully eager to please had been replaced by an adult, secure in his place in the world, responsibilities carried with ease and grace. He had been a fitting replacement after the death of the council's first director, the legendary Rupert Giles, watcher of two slayers and mentor to countless others.  
Now only the two of them watching from far away remembered the times when Andrew had not been the beloved, respected head of the council, but a vaguely misguided young man, easily persuaded by those stronger than him.  
"He did good." Buffy Summers-Giles, name changed long before in honour of the man she considered the father of her heart, stated.  
Dawn Summers nodded, tears glistening in her eyes, but never falling. "That he did." She looked away, unsure how to proceed.  
"You are leaving aren't you?" Her sister stated pragmatically, no condemnation evident in her voice.  
"I have been thinking about it." her sister admitted, throwing once more long hair over her shoulder, weariness evident in her voice and the stance of her body. "I just can't take it anymore." it burst from her in an eerie echo of the tone she had used as a teenager in long-forgotten Sunnydale. "Watching them all born and live and die. And us, like this." She waved her hand expressively, encompassing themselves in their unaged glory, their surroundings and the people below occasionally staring up at them.  
Buffy smiled, turning to her for the first time, hand raised to push a strand of hair from her sister's forehead. "Dawnie, I know. It's hard. And I understand why you have to leave. But we will see each other again. I know it. After all-"  
"we have nothing but time." they finished wearily together. The two women looked down once more at the funeral of their last true friend and as one turned to go.

* * *

The armada of ships took years to find a suitable new planet to colonise. And still they found a new homeworld long before the more normal humans, those without slayer blood, and demon blood and werewolf blood. Conditions on their planet did not have to be quite as perfect. They could stand extremes of temperature normals couldn't. And so it came to be that the first planet colonised by humans was colonised by the descendants of the new watcher's council of Earth. They called their new home Casero and set about rebuilding their lives.

* * *

"Why is this so difficult for you?" He screamed at her, hands clenched into fists by his side, as if he had to physically force himself not to shake her.  
Buffy looked away, out the window to the harsh sunlight outside. "Why are you making such a big fuss?" She asked calmly, unfazed by his outburst.  
"Why?" His voice rose once more. "Because I love you, dammit. I want to marry you and have children with you. Grow old with you."  
His lover jumped to her feet. "I'm sorry you feel that, but I can't." It had clearly been a mistake to take up with somebody not from her circle, someone outside the watcher's council. She had wanted normality for once, somebody who did not look at her like some kind of goddess, sent down to walk among the mortals. A stupid mistake.  
"Can't or wont?" he snarled, anger almost getting the better of him. "I thought we were on the same page here. We have been going out with each other for five years now and still I don't know more about you than the day we met. I haven't met any of your family. You disappear for weeks on end and come back like nothing has happened. Is this just some kind of joke for you? String on the man, then drop him like a hot potato? Selfish cow! I invested years in you and now you just want to throw it away, because I am getting too emotionally involved for your stunted mentality." Logically he knew that he was crossing a line, but at that point the pain he was feeling masked his common sense.  
Buffy stood up, golden hair gleaming in the sunlight streaming through the window. Her voice was calm as she spoke. "The answer is can't. I can not grow old with you for I can't die. We can not have children, because no aging means no changes, means no periods, means no children. I am frozen in time. This was a mistake." She turned and walked from their room.  
Her voice drifted back through the house. "I will send for my things. For what it is worth I am sorry "  
Outside she slid on her dark sunglasses. Normalcy didn't work for her, time to go back to the freaks. Her personal messenger flashed open on the glass hiding her eyes, scrolled down and dialled a number. "Hey, Dawn. I'm coming home."

* * *

Years passed and the Caserans colonised their entire planet, living in peace with their surroundings, careful not to repeat the same mistakes their forebears had made on old Earth. Buffy, for she had gone back to the name she felt most comfortable with, helped them, the knowledge she had acquired in her long years aiding and abetting her family on their new world. And still she watched, untouched by time, as people she called friends aged and died, leaving her behind to make the best of what was left for her.  
And finally a time came when she could leave with the promise of return. She had another task to fulfil, other stars to find. Her duty was to protect mankind and that meant leaving Casero and finding the other worlds humanity had colonised. It was time to find Willow's line. It was time to find Dawn.  



	3. Shades of Grey

Disclaimer: Quotes as attributed. Buffy and Riddick are not mine. Although I can maybe, just maybe lay claim to the world I am building up around them. Which is becoming more involved as we speak, so I will be posting a timetable soon. Well, did that already. And we are coming closer to the meat of the matter. It is taking a while, but I want to build in certain similarities to the history of the 20th century, so not that easy. And once again I have no beta, so if something doesn't fit, let me know and I will fix it.

We are at a point in history where a proper attention to space, and especially near space, may be absolutely crucial in bringing the world together. - Margaret Mead

**Chapter Two: Shades of Grey  
**

Jumping in and out of hyperspace was second nature to Buffy by now. Three years into her trip to find the other arks that had left Earth so long before, the only difference was that while still travelling alone, her ship was now much bigger and better equipped. It swiftly sped through the neck of the universe she now found herself in, carrying her to the next planet capable of supporting human life. Even if it didn't turn out to be what she was looking for, its position would be faithfully recorded, along with all the maybe worlds too hot or too cold to sustain human life unless they burrowed under the surface like moles.

She dismissed them as inconsequential. It would be a long time before humans needed even more worlds to settle, let alone use the fall-back list she was compiling. She kept herself amused while crossing the intergalactic vastness by devising names for some of them. One planet in particular with a surface temperature so high that the atmosphere was in danger of combusting received the name La Boca del Inferno, for old time's sake. Although given the way the sun burned everything on the planet to cinders within moments of rising, it was a more literal interpretation of the moniker than her hometown had been.

The frozen planet just narrowly missed being foisted off with 'Hoth', in honour of an old friend's obsession. But nobody would get the reference anymore and for an inside joke? Well, there were only two left inside and Dawn had never really liked the series anyway. So that idea was nixed.

Buffy sat in the pilot's chair, staring out into the void, idly twirling a lock of hair around a finger, lost in thought. The view outside her port window shone with a black so dark, the stars seemed like too bright gems somebody had haphazardly strewn across the firmament. It almost hurt to look at them here where there was no ambient light to get between her and them. Back on Earth light pollution had made sure that the stars were faint and distant things set high in the sky beyond the skyscrapers and jets. Now she could see all these star systems spread out before her eyes, nothing in the way. It made her feel peaceful in a way she hadn't felt since she had died the second time and spent an eternity in heaven.

The only sound disturbing her solitude was the quiet hum of her ship's engines. She never felt safer than she did locked in her ship hurtling through space at speeds the old Apollo pilots could only dream of. Yes, she knew a million things could go wrong at any time. She had seen them go wrong more than once. Had picked up the pieces more than once. Her ship could run into an uncharted asteroid belt, some small but essential part could malfunction and send her hurtling off course, never to be found again. However, those things were all out of her hands. It wasn't a case of being attacked by lunatic vampires intent on destroying the world. Or bands of roaming demons intent on having a bit of fun. Events in which she had been expected to stand up and fight.

Here she could plan for the worst and then sit back and relax. She had done her bit and enjoy the quiet and between the stars, while the AI ticked away making minute corrections to her course. It was just her and the silence.

After all these years she had finally found a form of meditation to suit her. These trips between stars gave her the opportunity to sort through the information she had gathered since leaving Casero. If anything their trip to the stars had only exuberated the problem already inherent on Earth. The almost instinctive need to form cliques, groups, like going with like. It had come around almost as a matter of course. Friends were more likely to go off on the same ship, sticking to people with their own values and beliefs.  
Instead of mountains and rivers separating different ideologies and religions it was now the almost insurmountable distances between stars. Distances it was only possible for the rich and powerful to bridge. And they were often not inclined to pass on their knowledge that the others were not that different. Seeing as it often served their purpose to allow the erroneous opinions to live on.

Assumptions that had already cost millions of lives back on Earth, did not simply disappear simply because the object was no longer on the other side of the mountain.

No in true democratic fashion, prejudices selfless expanded to include anybody not from on-planet. Foreigners were regarded with distrust at best and outright hostility at worst.  
It was worrying. All those years before science fiction writers had dreamed up a peaceful confederation among the stars. An organisation spanning galaxies and worlds. Countless shows and movies devoted to the peaceful if sometimes endangered existence that awaited them if they could just make the leap beyond their sun's pull. Just like in olden times people had proclaimed that everything was better in the west, these people fervently believed that everything would be better among the stars. That somehow the presumptions and arrogance was bound more to the gravity of earth than they themselves were. What she saw proved a sobering dose of reality. The distances between worlds intensified distrust, separating them even further rather than bringing them together towards a common goal.  
Already she saw stirrings of hate, outspoken people envious of their neighbour's perceived wealth, working towards battles, even outright war. The voice of reason seemed to have been lost somewhere on the way to their new homes.

Maybe it had already been lost the day pacifist demons had been denied a place in the exodus from Earth. It didn't really matter. What was done was done. All she could do was pick up the pieces after the fall-out and make sure Casero was left out of it.

The sky burst into flames above them as the Dorians let loose another volley of rockets in their efforts to finally break Olmekan resistance.  
It was almost beautiful in its gory promise of destruction.  
General Summers refused to let that intimidate her. "Hold the line damn you." Her amplified voice rang through her soldier's com devices.

Not that they really needed the announcement, comprised as they were mostly of her fellow Cesarons. And they weren't about to fall back just because a few bomblets were falling around their ears. And their steadfastness in turn sparked the resolve of the Olmekan soldiers in her ranks. They knew what they were fighting for after all. Their homes their families, their very right to exist. It would stop here.

"You will hold this line. It stops here." Their general's voice echoed their thoughts. "Those bastards have taken too many worlds already. And there is nothing left where once people went about their business. We will not let that happen here. You will pull those birds out of the sky and you will show them that we will not roll over and die just because they wish it so. We will fight! To the last inch. Our dying breath." Are you with me?"  
The ayes were deafening, echoes rolling through the mountains and valleys of the continent the Dorians had chosen for their first assault.

Far below her position, the Dorian ground assault forces were slowly moving forward, assured that Olmekan resistance had been greatly diminished by the daylong planet wide barrages preceding their invasion.  
What they didn't know was that Buffy had managed to sneak on the planet before all transport was completely shut down. One thousand hand-picked recruits from the Cesaron defence forces. It didn't sound like much and the Olmekans, while vociferously grateful for any help at all, couldn't quite mask their disappointment at the small number of reinforcements.

However they had soon changed their minds when the tales of the Caserons filtered up to their sheltered ivory towers. She would have to forgive them for failing to make the connection, for after all the majority of tales were not about Caserons. For while she and her people called themselves Caserons after their home planet, the rest of the universe knew them under a different name. It inspired fear in the heart of many, for once riled no barrier held them, no wall could stop them. Nothing stood in their way, be it man, machine or beast. Their battle lust legendary, they did most of their hand to hand fighting with curiously old-fashioned weaponry. Swords and knives were their chosen forms of attacks. Besieged time and time again, they held their home planet against anybody and everybody daring to impinge on their territory. The gods help anybody who roused the Furyans wrath, for it was unquenchable and limitless.

Their propensity for hand to hand combat would come in handy, considering Buffy's plans. Buffy had decided beforehand that playing by the Dorian's rules would only lead to their death. Their only hope lay in destroying the rules. They had to play dirty if they wanted a chance at victory.

And so she watched with no little amount of satisfaction as the first Dorian forces walked into the traps she and her men had worked tirelessly to install on any and every route the Dorians might choose to take. The ranged from well-hidden mine-fields that even those of her troops with maps avoided to spells of confusion that rather nastily made you thing that your fellow in arms was in actual fact an Olmekan spy. Some of her better work she thought in her introspective moments. If it bothered her, this shade of grey that had become her life since leaving earth, no-one noticed. Many of them because they did not know how old she was and many because they had lived in the grey their entire life, did in fact not know any other way to live. Accepted it as fact. Your enemy could be a good person and the person you trusted with your life the biggest bastard around. It didn't matter in the heat of the fight and she wasn't about to second guess the men she trusted with the lives of thousands of people on this almost insignificant planet in the middle of nowhere.

Within minutes the opposing lines were nothing but a sea of humanity with no uniting order among them. Soldier shot shield mate, they turned on their officers and communications experts. It was carnage.

Buffy watched with an impassive face, not a single flicker betraying her emotions. She had come a long way since her early days of black and white. Spike would be pleased, Xander disgusted. To the very end he had firmly believed that there was good and bad, humans and demons and never the twain shall meet unless on the field of battle.  
On particularly bad days, Buffy longed for those days. She missed the simplicity of it all. See demon. Kill demon. Now the monsters had human faces and bodies, could be behind your best friend's face or behind your enemy's. It was not apparent at first sight who you could trust, no handy books and Scoobie pals to help you figure out what needed killing and what just wanted to live. She missed it with an intensity that was an almost physical ache.

"It was all so easy back then." she murmured to herself.  
"What was that, sir?" Her second's voice cut through her daydreaming and brought her back to the present. There was a battle to be won.  
"Nothing, solider." Her voice was brisk and to the point. "Status report?"  
"Recon states enemy forces in sector two are digging in. Trying to set up trenches every which way. Can't hardly tell what side they are defending never mind attacking."  
Buffy pulled the relative mental files. "Sector two was the one with the level three spells of confusion and level five spells of misdirection. Seemed like they are working."  
"That's right, sir."  
"Continue."  
"Sectors one through twelve are all reporting enemy forces have slowed their advances due to significant losses, but are still moving forward. Casualties amount to about twenty percent of the enemy numbers. No casualties on our side."  
"Well done. Dismissed." She returned his departing salute and concentrated once more on the holographic map hanging before her. A small part of her soul continued to lament the golden days when enemy forces could more often than not be counted on the fingers of both hands. Before twenty percent became just a number. The days when the thought of four thousand men and women dying would have shocked her. Shades of grey were much harder to live with.

She lightly tapped the image pulling up a close-up of sector two. With a twirl of her wrist she turned the image into a birds-eye view of proceedings and watched as the dams to the east of the valley were blow-up and millions of gallons of water poured down on the unsuspecting Dorians. It was a massacre. Weighed down with armour and weapons they didn't stand a chance against the masses of water and mud churning along the valley floor.  
"Thank you, Giles." Her whispered comment was only mildly sarcastic, yet held a wealth of pain. It was largely due to her watcher that she had survived for so long. His decision early on to throw the handbook out of the window, teaching her to believe in herself and make the best of what she had to hand. Due to his tutelage she had turned the use of unconventional weapons into an art form, something that had saved countless lives on this day. She had known almost instinctively that if they let the Dorians settle and made for a classic fight, they would loose. The Dorians were too well equipped to not just run over them. Their only chance lay in Guerrilla tactics and a scorched earth policy. Guerrilla to slow them down while the evacuated the populace and nibbled away at the other forces until it became a war too costly to maintain.

Now came the hard part. Ordering in her troops to clean up. Two hundred years before her heart would have wept, but she still would have given the order. And another century before that, in the town of Sunnydale she would have been unable to plan something on this scale and with this much calculated brutality. Perhaps it had all changed that day when she had led a bunch of potentials into the mouth of hell itself, knowing that despite her words Willow might not be able to pull off the spell to activate them, knowing they might all die, but also knowing that they had to try. Had to give their best and if that meant gaining the rest of the world one single extra second of life at the expense of theirs then so be it. Once you start making decisions like that it is impossible to go back to what was before. That was the day when she finally lost her innocence.

"Oh, General Summers. Your campaign was an unqualified success." The Olmekan official gushed, practically bouncing up and down in his seat, chiffed beyond belief that all this had gone down on his watch. Never mind that he hadn't lifted a finger to help, preferring instead to hide away in the shelters under the mountains.  
"If there is anything we can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask." He beamed once more.

'Can you give me back the 246 comrades I lost defending this pipsqueak little planet?' She thought it but she didn't say it. God she despised people like him. People who saw only the numbers and ignored the blood, sweat and tears shed by others for their causes. Ignored the stories behind every soldier, didn't know and didn't care if there was somebody mourning the men who had laid down their lives for the planet. It was disgusting, however no amount of talking would teach this guy a lesson. They only looked up when their own oxen were mauled. So, instead she pasted a fake smile on her lips.  
"No, that's alright Chancellor. Me and my men will be on our way back home. Hopefully this is the last we will see of war in a long time."

The Chancellor nodded frantically, glad to get the General and her army off planet as soon as possible. She was scary in her intensity, as if she had seen more in her short life than others did in decades. He quickly shook off the feeling and watched with no little relief as the General boarded her ship. Later he would go to the Temple and offer thanks and a prayer that she would be right. That there would be no further wars. In the excitement of the celebrations he never did make it to the temple.

In a universe that was shaped by belief, after all wasn't that what magic came down to, it would never be known if the Olmekan official's prayer might have made the difference or if it would have been an exercise in futility. The battle for Olmek, instead of being a one-off event, turned out to be the opening salvo in a much bigger war. A war that swept through galaxies and star clusters, gathering everything before it until peace seemed to be an idealistic concept philosophers had invented to keep the normal populace happy in their valley of tears. Hope dies last they say.

The seed for this war had already been evident in the seedling ships leaving Earth. After all why bother terraforming another planet, with all the hardships that entailed, if you could simply take over your neighbour's planet, with slave labour thrown in for free.

At first Cesaro attempted to aid the weaker and protect them from stronger aggressors. However as time went on the lines between aggressor and victim blurred until they were almost invisible. The victim of one galactic year, begging for any form of aid, would the next year spring back with even more fervour as an aggressor itself, while the planets they had only recently been fighting against suddenly found themselves on the losing side of things.  
Millions died across the galaxies. Some starved to death when supply ships failed to make it past the blockades surrounding their homes. Some died screaming soundlessly in the vacuum of space when the hulls of their ships were breached. And some simply gave up. It seemed humanity was determined to self-destruct.

In those terrible years, Buffy and her fellow Cesarons tried simply to survive. They pulled back to their home system and concentrated on defending what was theirs. The Council's old rules still held true, for never did they attempt to strike pre-emptively, preferring instead to throw back aggressors with extreme prejudice. The reputation they had begun to build in the years preceding the war of Olmek, was built in and extended after wave after wave of invasions were reflected back with seemingly no effort whatsoever.  
Furyans one and all, they lived by no rules but their own. Fiercely protective of their kin they stopped at nothing if threatened. The life of the one was expendable as long as the race as a whole survived.

The stories and tales of their exploits grew in leaps and bounds. They said you never saw a Furyan coming unless he wanted you to. They said a Furyan could pass through walls and doors as if they weren't even there. They said many things. Some of them even true.  
To see a Furyan fight was an honour few survived. A whirling dance of death it was a thing of beauty. Their weapons an almost conscious extension of themselves, they dealt death swiftly and efficiently. The slayer's heritage held true. A Furyan could pick up any weapon and instantly, intuitively know how to use it well and after a couple of minutes could use it as if born to it.

Despite all this, most Furyans preferred swords. From the stiletto to the broadsword, knives almost came alive in their hands. If anything eclipsed their fighting prowess it was their ability as swordsmiths. The best Furyan artists could name their prices, but almost all preferred to equip only their own people. And finally one day, the greatest swordsmith of them all, Rhianen del Rhedarque, created a weapon that molded so perfectly to a Furyans body, moving almost before conscious thought, that it quickly became the weapon of choice of most Furyans. He called them shivs and as a gesture of allegiance gifted the first pair to the reverred patron of their race, Buffy Summers.

Indeed over the years, the prowess of the Furyans with their chosen weapon and their great sense of honour and what was right became such a well-known tale that it perhaps came as no surprise when the Elementals, long distant descendants of the great white witch Willow Rosenberg and her progeny, recorded the first prophecies regarding this race of warriors.

They told of a time in which a Furyan would wipe out a great threat to the galaxy and lead all others to peace.


	4. Fuego de los Cielos

A/N: You might call me a bit of a cynic, or maybe pessimist is the right word. I don't really believe that turning to the stars will unite all humanity, like you see in the old Star Trek series and to a certain extent also in the Stargate Atlantis thing. I just don't believe people are that magnanimous.  
Given the choice of going off with a bunch of strangers or a bunch of people you know and share your beliefs with well I am going to bet on going with the latter. You like what you know. So yeah, conflicts on Earth, probably just magnified in space. And that's my piece of philosophy for the day. One last thing though, history has a way of repeating itself.

_For I dipped into the Future, far as human eye could see; saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be. - Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1842_

**Chapter Three: Fuego de los Cielos**

"This isn't right." Buffy muttered to herself, plucking at one of her long and trailing sleeves. She looked ridiculous. The organisers of this little 'lets close the door after the horse has bolted' fiesta had insisted on very elaborate gowns, with long wispy sleeves and trains, hoping that would impede movement enough people would think twice about attacking anybody. As if. She was confident in herself and her companions that if it came down to it not even the prospect of having to strip their clothes and fight in the nude would stop them from doing their duty.

The real reason for her discomfort however was another. After years of silence, so long in fact that she had initially distrusted the feeling, her spideysense was tingling. With a vengeance. Something or somebody in the audience was not what he or she claimed to be. Restlessly she scratched the back of her head, in a lame effort to get the hair there to calm down and lay flat.

"What is the matter, Mistress Buffy?" One of her companions, a tall female with an almost expressionless face that belied the emotions Buffy knew roiled beneath, had spoken.  
"Don't call me that, Brianna. You know it annoys me." Buffy sniped, already cursing herself for letting her tension out on somebody she considered a close friend. Well as close as you could get, considering that when Brianna was dead and gone she would still be merrily going on her way. Immortality sucked.

"This whole thing is a farce anyway." She continued, waving a slim hand at the assembly below them. "Those that started this whole mess aren't here anyway, long dead, one and all. And the planet they are now putting up on charges for everything wasn't even involved in the first few battles." Having based her whole life around the simple maxim about what was right and what wasn't, this offended her fine sense of justice to no end. Haven was simply another little planet in a big war. At least at first. Then somehow they had managed to swing their way around more and more power until the other planets realised that if they wanted to stop this one planet from completing what they all had been trying one way or another then they would have to give up their petty squabbles and band together. And they had won, barely. The Great Coalition had prevailed. And now they were sitting trial over Haven, trying to decide what to do with the little planet that had almost defeated them all.

"They have to leave them something." Buffy muttered to herself, lost once more in memories of long ago history lessons only she remembered.  
"What do you mean?" Brianna asked, the 'mistress' hanging unspoken in the air.  
"They have to leave them their pride." Buffy answered distractedly. "You mustn't bend defeated foes too low, lest they break and try all over again a generation later. If they leave them their pride, Haven will be more likely to accede to our decisions. If we break them here and today, they will return in a generation or two to exact their vengeance. The only way to stop the cycle is to make sure the defeat does not smart too much. For all that he is your enemy, either destroy them completely, man, woman and child or leave them in a position in which they can still look you in the eye."

Deep inside Buffy wished she could remember more from those long ago hours dreamt away in history lessons. She had faint ideas about the Weimar Republic, but couldn't quite place why that thought seemed apt for this trial. While she was still trying to lay her metaphorical finger on what was tickling her senses, she watched proceedings below. Watched as the so called Coalition for Freedom stripped away every one of Haven's freedoms. They took away their spaceships. They told them to disband their armed forces. To give back all weapons on the planet, which would leave them defenceless against all attackers. Told them there would be 'advisors' to keep an eye on things. And finally brought out the clincher. Haven would be forced to pay reparations to all planets afflicted by the war. For the next 120 standard years.

A deep sigh left Buffy's lips. It was even worse than she had feared. Haven hadn't just been broken, it had been humiliated. Down below the representatives of Haven's government signed the charter laid before them with stony faces, the fiery need for revenge already burning deep within them, clear for anybody to see who wished to do so. Buffy and Brianna who cared enough to see it. It burned the strongest perhaps in a young man standing slightly behind and to the left of the former admiral of the Haven fleet. Barely out of his twenties, he already had his face under full control, though his eyes gave the game away.

"Who's that?" Buffy asked Brianna.

Her companion was silent for a moment, then answered. "The son of the former president. His father was killed in the first wave of counter attacks. He is too young to hold office, but he serves as a aide-de-campe in the navy. Assistant to the Lord Marshall I believe. Not much is known about him. They say he will be one to watch."

Buffy shivered. The tone held too much gravity in it. And her spideysense was positively singing whenever she glanced over at the young man, who already held such hate in his soul. Somebody like that was capable of anything.

"We will have to keep an eye on that one." she said. Brianna merely nodded, knowing Buffy meant herself.

"It is possible that the Coalition would not look askance at a representative of the Furyan race asking for the honour of being one of Haven's new advisors." She stated blankly, the corner of her mouth twitching as Buffy caught on to her thoughts and let loose a delighted laugh that rang through the assembly and brought the attention of the young aide-de-campe squarely to them. Buffy's laughter swiftly died, when she noticed this, for the young man's face seemed to tighten even more, hate clearly evident now for all to see. She rubbed suddenly cold arms. The last time she had seen a look like that Angelus had been the one sporting it. An odd mixture of want and lust and the homicidal need to smear her insides over the sky.

"We will definitely be keeping an eye on him." She affirmed once more.

"Mistress Buffy! Mistress Buffy!" The young boy was breathless by the time he finally managed to find who he was looking for. He stopped in midstep when he saw what she was doing, falling over with an indignant squeak. Buffy was practising her katas in the midmorning sun, deliberately slow for the audience of young women and men watching her. Each move was a study in economy, not a single molecule of energy wasted, landing exactly where it should. But then she had had a long time to perfect her arts. With a final graceful punch, that would have knocked a man's head clean off, she finished.  
"And that is how it is done. Now you do it." Smirking, she ignored the chorus of groans this statement provoked and turned her attention to the little page bouncing from foot to foot, eager to execute his duty.

"What's up Halen?"

The boy flushed, pleased that the great Mistress Buffy remembered his name. "The council asks if you could kindly come by after training. They have news of Haven." His chest swelled, having successfully completed his mission. Buffy reached out a hand and ruffled his hair, suppressing a smile when the boy grimaced and patted the hair back into place.  
"You run along and tell them I will be by in about an hour. Just have to finish harassing my poor students."

She watched with a genuine smile as Halen ran off as fast as his legs could carry him. Then she turned back to her students an almost evil grin in place. "Well, you know what that means. We will have to get an hour and a half of lessons into an hour." Another chorus of good-natured groans was the only answer she got. Inside though she wondered if her holiday was over. Haven had seemed stable when she left. Left to return here to the home of her heart and the people she considered her family.

Buffy finished tying up her hair just as she walked into the great hall. The entire council was already in place, their sombre expressions boding no good news.

"What's the sitch?" The council, used to their patron's often strange use of language, turned as one to look at their speaker, De'Rhen.

"Buffy, we have received both good news and slightly alarming news."

"Bad news first then. At least that way we will have something to look forward to."

"We have just received word, that Haven has elected a new Lord Marshall."

"I thought that position didn't exist anymore seeing as they have no navy to speak of." Buffy frowned slightly, already having a good idea where this was going.

"They don't. However, the position has changed somewhat and the title is now used for the lifetime president of Haven. I believe you know him. Met him at the Coalition."

Now Buffy really had a bad feeling. "The son of the old president is now lifetime president? That doesn't sound good."

"No it doesn't. He has also combined all legislative and executive powers in his position."

"That sounds even worse. So do we know if he is planning any wars?"

De'Rhen shook her head. "No the new Lord Marshall insists that he is simply trying to make Haven a safe place, able to take it's rightful place in the Coalition."

"Where have I heard that before?" Buffy asked. "I mean safe for who? And what exactly is this rightful position?"

"That we do not know."

"Well, we will have to keep an even closer eye on him. I don't want the invasion of Poland to happen all over again."

"The good news is that the Coalition have relieved you of your duty as an advisor on Haven. They thank you for your exemplary duty and the Lord Marshall himself was kind enough to extend his thanks for your tireless efforts to better the lot of his people and begs you to accept this humble token of their gratitude." She briefly held up a velvet box for Buffy to be blinded by, for inside lay a medal with more precious stones set into it than any person with the slightest amount of fashion sense would ever consider wearing. Buffy also did not miss the slight tinge of irony in De'Rhen's voice. She was much too good a politician to be obvious about it, but Buffy had known her for a long time now and was more than able to read her like a book.

Yet, even as she registered these thoughts, the slayer in her insisted that Haven still posed a threat and that somebody had better keep an eye on them. She shrugged the feeling off, she was free. Free to do whatever she liked and it had been too long since she had seen Dawn.

The following decades were a time of peace for Buffy and the known universe. She spent those years with her sister on New Mecca. In the centuries they had known each other Buffy and her sister had come far beyond mere sisters. They had had to. Their relationship in its early years had been too fraught with tension, life and death situations, a sister trying to be a mother when she was barely grown up herself. The younger sister resenting the perceived replacement of that beloved mother figure.

It had taken a long time for them to find a balance in their lives, for Buffy to give up trying to mother her sister and simply be there. Of course the first time Dawn practically single-handedly organised the averting of an apocalypse it had been hard for Buffy to argue that she was too young for their lifestyle.

Many tears and tantrums had followed over the decades, but in the end they had managed. Then again they practically had eternity to figure it out and knowing that you would live for an unknown length of time put a couple of decades spent not talking to each other into perspective.

And now Buffy and Dawn knew each other for what they really were, slayer and sorceress, sisters and above all best friends. Tara would have been proud.

"So, what's the plan?" Dawn asked languidly, one arm trailing over the side of the boat, her fingers skimming the surface of the water.

Buffy looked at her from her position at the stern of the boat. She let her head fall back against the gang whale and sighed. "I have no plans. No plans at all. Just us two and sun, sand and surf."

Dawn smiled. "Bit far from the sand, sis."

"You know what I mean. These last years have been so relaxing. No fighting, no stupid squabbling so-called advisors more intent on serving themselves than trying to sort out problems. It's nice you know." She trailed off, brow scrunching in thought.

"But?" Dawn asked.

"What do you mean but?"

"Well, it just sounded like there was a but. The but hung unspoken in the air. Yup. There was a definite flavour of butness in the air." Even after countless years away from the country of her birth, Dawn still affected the mannerisms of the town she had grown up in, although more with her sister than with her people.

"I can't put my finger on it Dawnie." Buffy complained. "It is like I know there is something coming but I can't put my finger on it. If we were still in Sunnydale I would say apocalypse season is coming."

"Well, maybe I can help you with that. Message came for you yesterday." Dawn stated nonchalantly, skilfully ignoring her sister's blazing glare. "De'Rhen sends her greetings and would like me to tell you that the Lord Marshall of Haven died in a freak accident. His successor has already been sworn in. I believe she said he was a member of the Liberal party."

"And you only tell me this now. Dawn, I should.."

"What? Call me selfish, but I knew that as soon as you heard you would be off once more. And I wanted to keep you here for a while. What's one day more or less?" She sent an innocent look her sister's way, a hopeful smile tingeing her lips.

Buffy huffed. "How am I supposed to stay mad, when you pull that." She shook her head, then unceremoniously dumped her aggravating sibling into the lake they were on. "There I feel much better now."

De'Rhen had aged so much, Buffy mused as she shared a civilised cup of chai with one of her best friends. It saddened her to see that she would loose said friend before very much longer. De'Rhen had lived a long and happy life, fulfilling many ambitions, raising a large family with many grandchildren and great-grandchildren to spoil. Buffy sometimes envied her with all she had in her. But she had long gotten past all that, had had to if she didn't want to let the grief consume her, tainting all her relationships.

"That is the fourth lord marshal now, I believe." De'Rhen stated, only the slightest hint of age evident in her voice.

Knowing no response was needed, Buffy kept silent, another talent learnt the hard way over the years.

"Haven has come far in the decades since the war. I heard that they now dominate the market where new technology is concerned."

"Yes, although we have never relied too much on gadgets, thank goodness." Buffy interjected.

"This new marshal, he is the son of his predecessor?"

"Yes, looks like they have got the whole monarchy thing going for them. Without you know actually saying that they have a monarchy thing going for them." Absently Buffy sipped her chai, relishing the subtle hints of spice among the creamy taste of the milk. It was as close to coffee as they could get.

"I believe you are right. It does have elements of absolute monarchy. I have heard rumours."

Buffy stilled. De'Rhen never passed on rumours unless they had been verified and counter-verified countless times. "Rumours about what, my friend?"

"Rumours that on the borders to the wild lands of Haven a new mentality is emerging. A mentality some people would consider worrying."

The slayer merely raised an eyebrow knowing full well that De'Rhen would get to her point when she was good and ready.

"The borderlanders are adopting the credo 'You keep what you kill'."

Buffy paled, memories from long before assaulting her, of another slayer, dark and damaged. Compelling eyes above pouty blood-red lips as she intoned her credo to the world.

"Want. Take. Have." She whispered the words, chills running along her spine.

"I believe it could be somewhat paraphrased that way," her companion stated, startling Buffy, who hadn't realised vocalising her words.

"This is indeed a worrying development."

"And yet there is nothing you can do, committed as you are to exploring the newly settled areas of space. There are rumours as you know of green men with horns on some of those planets. It would not be, how do you say it? Ah, it would not be of the good, if after years humanity once again had contact with the daemons."

Buffy frowned, torn between amusement at her old friend's pronunciation of the word demon and the worry that if she left on this planned trip much worse things would happen.  
The tiny part of her that was still a somewhat shallow valley girl made known that it was a good thing the whole immortality deal stopped her from getting wrinkles, because with the amount of frowning she had done over her worries she would be looking like a prune by then.


	5. Old Friends and Foes

A/N: I know this has been a long time coming but I had a serious case of writer's block because I couldn't get the darn thing to do what I wanted. Then I realised that I could just take out Buffy's part completely and it all went peachy with a side of keen. So Buffy's side of this will come a little bit later. Hope you like.

**Chapter Four: Old friends and enemies**

They came like thieves in the night. Infiltrating Furyan society, corrupting those drawn by power, fuelled by perceived wrongs. More and more of them came, posing as friends, tourists, visiting dignitaries until without realising it Furyan society had been overrun. And still they posed, charming and friendly, a snake in the grass, pressed to the very heart of their hosts until one night they struck. The Furyans were overwhelmed, and yet they still fought, fought with a ferociousness that eclipsed the reputation they had made for themselves in the galaxy, for here they fought on their own world, for their own beliefs, their freedom. And it was not enough. The enemy subdued them through sheer numbers, their leader indifferent to the numbers of fallen comrades, for the only thing he wanted was to see all Furyans assimilated or dead. There would be no mercy. There would be no middle ground. The threat had to be removed once and for all.

Desperate pleas for help winged their way out into the galaxy and fell on deaf ears. The enemy had done his task well, poisoning the people they had aided so often against them. The massacre on Furya itself was not the only one to take place in that blood ridden year. Many more, big and small took place across the galaxy, as one by one the Furyans fell before their unknown enemy's wrath.

All men, young and old were killed outright, babes and toddlers slaughtered in their cribs. Young boys shot from a distance by snipers, for no soldier was stupid enough to go hand to hand against even a seven year old. No, much safer to deal death from a distance, to ignore the glisten in young one's eyes, the curl of hair so much like your son's and pull the trigger, snuffing out life efficiently and swiftly. All woman over the age of forty were similarly done away with. Until all that was left were those females who were pregnant and the young.

None of them went peacefully and the enemy quietly fretted over the attrition rate, before consoling himself with the fact , that losing a normal soldier did not matter, for he planned on assimilating the next generation of Furyans, make them loyal only to him, bound to his fate for all eternity and then nothing would stand in his way.

However, the Furyan women were grossly underestimated, the boundaries they were willing to cross in order to prevent themselves from falling into the hands of the enemy unheard of.

On the third day, the guards in the prisoner's camps were met by a sight that felled the strongest men to their knees and had them retching helplessly as the full carnage overwhelmed their senses. Not a single Furyan woman was still alive. The young and very young had been strangled in their sleep, oddly peaceful expression gracing their still plump faces. Babies lay at their mothers breasts, the blue cast to their skin almost obliterated by the blood that had run freely from their mother's slit throats, dowsing them an obscene red. The smell of death lay heavily in the air, clogging the soldiers' throats, coating their tongues until all they could sense was the bright copper of spilt blood.

And in the centre of the carnage stood the very devil herself, blonde hair matted to her skull, clothes, arms and hands dripping with the essence of life. Her face a parody, thick streaks of the crimson liquid dabbed over her alabaster skin, making odd, disconcerting patterns on her cheeks and forehead. And standing out from this walking nightmare, were her eyes, her grief-stricken green eyes promising a swift death to all present.

"You did this." Her voice was a sibilant whisper, playing down their spines, filling them with the dread of certain death. "My people lie dead here on our planet. Though they slew themselves, it might as well have been your hands holding the knives to their throats as they strangled our brightest generation with the very cords that granted them life these months that they had spent in the womb. You did this. And you will pay! You will die. All of you. She will grant us our revenge. You brought us to this." A hand swept out to encompass the whole field. "Our lady of the sun will come down on you like the fires of hell themselves. No one will be safe. She will find you and will kill you in your sleep. You will not know when and you will not know how, but one day you will turn and you will know that that minute is the last of the rest of your life."

A shot rang out in the dread filled stillness of the compound and the blonde staggered, a plume of blood appearing as if by magic behind her head. Her eyes, filled with so much hate, went blank as death stopped for her. As if the strings that had held her upright had been cut, she crumpled gracelessly to the ground to join her brothers and sisters on the other side of the veil.

"Foolish ramblings of a mere female." A harsh voice threw out. As if jerked around the soldiers spun to face their lord and commander. One by one they scrambled to salute him and watched in fear to see what the verdict would be.

He walked past them and among the dead strewn so liberally on the saturated sand. "Pity. Such a waste. They would have made fine breeders." Despite the words their leader seemed unconcerned with the loss.

"Sergeant Matan!" The man in question was quick to jump front and centre, waiting for further orders.

"You will collect your men and go out to clear the surrounding countryside of insurgents. I want every last Furyan found and brought to me."

The sergeant swallowed, sending a single platoon out against who knew how many Furyans amounted to a death sentence. However, his leader could have been much less lenient. Bellowing out his orders, he rounded up his soldiers, cursing them for all he was worth if they lagged behind and gladly marched away from the bloodbath, eager to breath fresh air: He couldn't quite shake the feeling however that the blonde's words had been more than the grief-filled ramblings of a female. There had been a ring of truth to it.

Meanwhile, their leader, known to all and sundry merely as the Lord Marshall, seventh of his line, although that was not quite true, strolled among the bodies of his enemies. Behind him followed his most trusted lieutenants. The youngest and most foolish was first to break the silence, a habit that would later cost him his life.

"My lord, was it truly rambling? I have heard stories…" He trailed off, aware of the growing space around him, as the others tried to put as much space between them and him as they could as if they feared to be contaminated by association.

With a low creak of leather the Lord Marshall turned to the young man, regarding him without speaking for a long moment. Long enough to have the man squirming in his armour. Then he turned once more to survey the mass suicide below. "It is true that there was once a Lady of the Sun. I met her many years ago. And she did indeed fight like the devil himself. But that was a long time ago and she is dead, her tale a mere legend to these people. They were weak after all." He spat on the ground. "The Lady of the Sun is dead and now nothing will stand in my way. Nothing will stand in our way as we make our way to the under verse. Are you with me?" The last was bellowed out and the answers rang back from the surrounding city, the echoes multiplying until it seemed as if a thousand voices all called together.

"To the end! Till under verse come."

For weeks all seemed quiet and the Lord Marshall consolidated his hold on the planet Furya, finding the last pockets of defiance, mostly the very young and the very old hidden away in little valleys and in the deep caves of the mountains. He killed without mercy, for deep within the recesses of his mind an airy voice echoed with a long-forgotten prophecy. Forgotten by all but him and maybe the caster, if the old witch had survived what he had done to her that was.

"You shall be a great leader of men, all will bow before you and cringe in fear. Unless Furyan warriors are found. They are the one race that will not bow and the only race you must fear. Beware the Furyan, for they will be your downfall." The whisper played through his mind day and night, ceaselessly until he was almost insane with it. But now, finally he would have peace. The Furyans were dead, their lifeless bodies strewn across the galaxies. None had escaped. He had seen to that. And the Lady of the Sun was dead also. He knew it, believed it, had to believe it. True she had been young when she had come to his homeworld, as an advisor or so they said. But they were all the same, out to squeeze as much as they could from his planet. Well, no more, now they would know what it was to fear the very thing they had once destroyed.

Lost in his fantasies of revenge on all those he deemed offensive and in the way, the Lord Marshall failed to hear his youngest lieutenant hurrying to his room, the footsteps betraying a certain level anxiety.

"My Lord!" he burst into the room at a run, freezing on the spot when his lord turned and glared at him for the intrusion.

"What is it?" The tone was long-suffering, filled with the knowledge that this particular young man was entirely too excitable for the position he held. He would be replaced, however it would have to be done subtly, for in their society you kept what you killed, and regardless of the fact that his win had been more luck than anything else, he had killed.

"My Lord, news just in. Our forces are meeting some form of resistance in the northern territories. We lost contact with squadrons five, twenty and thirty-one two days ago. A recon flight this morning show there is nothing left of their camps but debris and corpses."

The Lord Marshal tensed. "Did I not order you to pacify the land by whatever means possible?"

"Yes, my lord. And all has been quiet for the last ten days. All resistance is eradicated. No Furyans were left alive."

"Obviously, that is not true." His master countered. "Three hundred men don't just fall over and die. Is there no recon?"

The lieutenant hesitated. "We received a last transmission burst from thirty-one. It is brief and the only words that could be made out are 'Golden Death', but we do not know what that means."

Abruptly the Lord Marshal turned back to the window, as he felt his face pale dramatically. It would not do to show weakness in front of his people. 'Golden Death', he had heard those words before. A long time ago. Had spoken those words himself as he watched the representative of the Furyan race to his homeworld spar with others. Her golden hair flying in the wind of her own making, she had dealt swift and utter destruction to any who dared opposed her. "But she is dead. She must be dead."

"My lord?"

The Lord Marshall schooled his features. It would not do to show fear. "It is no concern of yours. I want you to take charge of five hundred men and go out there and find whatever is responsible for the massacre of some of my most honoured troops. Come back with her body or never return at all."

The lieutenant swallowed heavily, fear invading his body. Five hundred men against something that had decimated three camps easily. The odds did not look in his favour. However, refusal was not an option. The Lord Marshall had his own ways of dealing with those that opposed him, none of them amusing or comforting. So instead he snapped off a salute and went off to gather his men and leave behind instructions for his retainers in case of his more than likely death.

"Lieutenant Sendar, sir." An aide came running up from the camp below, only slightly out of breath despite the long run he had just completed. Then again fitness and endurance had been one of the defining features Sendar had been looking for when he had picked his troups three weeks before.

Three weeks in which they had done nothing but tramp through the desolated continents of Furya searching for under verse knew what.

"Yes. Speak." The lieutenant had grown somewhat since the Lord Marshal had sent him off on his quest. Leadership came moderately easy to him, although deep inside he knew it would not matter whether or not he managed to fulfil his orders. The Lord Marshal deemed him expendable and would continue to send him on missions such as this until he failed to come back from one.

"Sir, the scouts have found a trail. Only two days old. Single person as far as they can tell. Heading in a due north direction."

"Well done. Tell them they will be receiving extra rations this night. And tell the rest of the men to get ready, we march in an hour."

"Sir, yes sir." The aide saluted and ran back down the way he had come.

Sendar sighed to himself. This was the fifth hot trail they had found in the last weeks and every time it would dissolve away into nothing, leaving them foundering more often than not in truly inhospitable areas, swamps and scree slopes. He had lost twenty men already simply to stupid accidents that occurred only to easily when lots of men were driven across the country at a punishing pace only to find themselves in places where fatigue and loss of concentration could prove deadly.

A day later however it seemed as if this trail would not be one of those cases. The trail was littered with flecks of blood, proof that their quarry was injured in some way. How it could continue with the amount of blood it had lost was a miracle in itself.

On the second day they finally caught up with it, the reason apparent immediately. It had been cornered in a blind gully, the surrounding cliffs many dozens of feet high and providing no way to climb out, especially considering the fact that she - as it turned out - was accompanied by another blonde and a small child.. Sendar shuddered. The Lord Marshall would be furious when he found out that not only one but three Furyans had survived the massacre.

Behind him almost five hundred men stared fearfully at the three Furyans in front of them. They had all survived the battles that overran the planet in the early months of the battle. And they knew what Furyans were capable of. Suddenly the odds seemed entirely against them.

Thinking furiously Sendar decided to soften them up first. Without taking his eyes away from their quarry he snapped hi fingers, registering with satisfaction that his aid immediately jumped to attention and awaited his orders.

"Build a barricade and do not let them out. We will starve them first, perhaps it will be possible to gift our Lord Marshall with a breeder after all."

It took two days before Sendar believed the Furyans weakened enough. Two days in which is men rested and prepared themselves for the battle ahead. Two days in which the three in the gully doggedly ignored the hunger pains nagging at their thoughts and the thirst burning in their veins. They were Furyans and nothing would stand in their way. Their thirst would be quenched with the blood of their enemies and the heavens would tremble as they exacted their revenge on the people that had destroyed their home.

On the morning of the third day Sendar rallied his troops and laid out his battle plan. The gully being as narrow as it was, it would not be possible to send in more than ten at a time. But then again all he had to do was hold out. The Furyans would fight without pause. Sooner or later he would have them. Settling his features he gave the order for the first ten soldiers to take on the Furyans in their hideout. It proved to be a horrendous battle as wave after wave of necromancers fought against the three defending themselves so valiantly. The child was the first to fall, buried beneath three necromongers who shoved their swords in and out of his little body until it looked like a mangle pincushion. They did not live long to glory in their achievement, for the death of the last child of the Furyans sent the two females into a killing frenzy. The one wielding her sword as if it was an extension of her hand the other twirling her odd axe like weapon in a silver ark that cut down all in its path. Both were saturated with the blood of their attackers, splattered with streaks of the red liquid. They knew no pain nor tiring. Or so it seemed.

Late that night, as the battle continued under the light of the moon, the second blonde fell to the swords of their attackers.

And still their original quarry held position, fought down the invaders coming at her from all directions until the gully was awash in blood and the corpses stacked up along the sides creating their own barrier.

Until finally it was over. A necromonger more cautious than the others managed to sneak in behind the woman and slice her back open from shoulder to hip. With a faint cry the woman dropped only to find herself at the receiving end of brutal kicks and punches as the men let out days of frustration on her increasingly battered body. Knives and guns were discarded in favour of fists and feet.

"Enough!" Sendar shouted once he was sure the men would listen, their first bloodlust fading. Mincing his way through the gore, grimacing as unnameable things slid away from under his steps, Sendar rejoiced inside. He had achieved what his lord had asked. Granted their losses were atrocious. Of the five hundred men who had left the capitol city only about seventy remained. But the lady of the sun was in his grasp.

Shoving a foot under her shoulder he turned her roughly over on her back, revelling at the groan it drew from her.

"The Lady of the Sun I presume? It has been a long time coming, but now you are caught. The Lord Marshall will be most pleased."

The battered woman coughed once and then spat on his shoes. "I will never go with you."

Sendar grimaced. Why did these people never know when enough was enough? "I do not believe you have a choice, my dear." Turning to his aide de camp he gestured for their prisoner to be bound.

The lady lay at his feet gasping for enough breath to do what she had to do. Moving slowly, fighting the waves of pain that threatened to drag her down to oblivion, she clasped a hand around the brilliantly blue jewel hanging around her neck and whispered. "Take me to Willow."

A blinding light filled the gully, making the necromongers stumble back in shock, hands thrown in fron of their faces in futile self-defence.

Sendar shook his head, trying to disperse the stars dancing in front of his eyes, then froze in shock. The lady was gone. Only the dead necromongers and her companions remained. Terror filled him as he thought of his liege's reaction when he told him that the lady had escaped once more. Glancing around as he feverishly searched for a solution, he saw the looks in his men's eyes. They all shared his thoughts. The Lord Marshall's reaction would be terrifying.

It was the aide de camp that finally came to the rescue. Moving over to the other blonde woman who lay a few feet away, he stated: "You heard the lieutenant. Bind her for travel to the Lord Marshall's palace."

While Sendar still struggled to realise what his aide was hoping to accomplish, the men were two steps ahead, responding to the aide's order with alacrity.

The necromonger dead were left where they were. They had died for the cause, but there were more where they came from. Only the strong would survive.


	6. Into the valley of death

Into the Valley of Death 

A/N: I know this has been a long time coming. I tend to write things back to front and I had the first paragraph and the last, but getting from one to other proved a problem. I apologise for the delay. I hope you like it, just finished it at eleven at night, so forgive any spelling mistakes. i want this up and will deal with the details tomorrow.

The title is from that great English poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade". Seemed somewhat fitting. 

Buffy was numb to the beauty surrounding her. The galaxies smeared across the black velvet of space like so many smushed butterfly wings. The quiet pulse of quasars did nothing for her. She was oblivious to the dance of planets around and into their stars.

When she thought about it, rarely if ever, she had the same feeling she used to have in the good old days in Sunnydale, when her patrols consisted of running through the three largest cemeteries and not of travelling endlessly between stars. Trying to fall into a cryogenic sleep but failing because her system metabolised medication faster than her med system could and would minister it. Back then she had meandered from one threat to the next, oblivious to the moonlight shining down in the gravestones, harsh stars above and soft grass below.

All these trips she had undertaken in the centuries since they left Earth were nothing but mirror images of her old patrols on a much larger scale. Hurrying from planet to planet and into the outer depths of occupied space itself, it seemed like fighting was all she was good for. On those days she missed her friends with an almost physical ache that left her gasping, breath caught in her throat until she gagged from the pain.

The so called demons she had been looking for had been about as real as a fata morgana. All image and xenophobic ideas, no substance. It was always the next planet over. Or somebody's cousin's friend who swore he had seen something that 'weren't a natural.' God, humanity sickened her sometimes. It was amazing how small-minded humanity still remained even after exploding their horizons when they reached for the stars. Or maybe broadening your horizons only happened to other people. She herself had seen some 'fucked up shit' as her long-missed sister slayer would have called it.

One planet had held some weird kind of demon dog, all reflective eyes and bad attitude. Kinda cute in a way, definitely appealed to her inner slayer who had wasted no time in getting them to roll over and have their bellies scratched by her. She had contemplated taking one with her, but then decided against it, the beasts would probably tear apart anybody who came close.

And now she was once again stuck between stars, in transit back to her homeworld, to see who was left after the years she had been away. To find the fragments of old friendships and rebuild her life once again. Just like she always did.

Every time it got harder to return. Knowing that old friends would have died in the meantime and that once again she would be regarded as some magical creature of legend until her all to human clay feet made themselves apparent once more and she was cast from Olympus.

She didn't know which part she hated more. Being seen as some kind of goddess or the disappointment on their faces when she proved not to be some messiah sent from above with all the answers.

"It sucks." She grumbled.

"Stop being such a crybaby, Buffy."

Buffy rolled her eyes. Dawnie was annoying at the best of times, but now she had taken it to new heights. Then again decades of planning probably went into this, so she should be flattered her sister felt the need to prank her like this. Somehow she had managed to hack herself into the A.I.'s system and replace the normal parameters with herself. The crowning glory however was the fact that she had locked Buffy out from her own systems, making it impossible to change back.

"I'm not a crybaby." You'd think after five years she'd be used to the stupid A.I., but something about it just got under her skin much like her sister did. It was infuriating and best ignored as best she could.

"Pull up our route."

Fortunately while annoying Dawn Version 2.0 was also extremely capable. It only took seconds for a holographic depiction of the universe to fill the bridge, stars upon stars lighting up the room. And there on one tiny part of the universe were the blue dots that indicated human occupied space and leading away from from it the thin line depicting her route, first hopping from planet to planet and then heading out into space.

"I received a standard information burst a couple of hours ago, Buffy. Would you like me to update the system."

"Don't see what difference it is going to make." Buffy muttered, waving V2 on. Her eyes widened as the number of blue planets almost doubled. How was that possible in the little time that had passed? Then shock deepened as first one planet turned red and then another and another.

"What is that?"

"Sorry, the only comment is that the planet's failed."

"But some of those planets have been colonised for centuries. Look, its ten planets already and one the is Centauri One. That was the most successful of them all. I was there six years ago and they were doing fine."

"Uh, negative, Buffy. Our trip has taken fifty-two standard years."

"What?" Buffy spluttered. "I know I'm old but I am sure that I would remember spending that much time in space. Hello, calendar and everything."

For a machine V2 did a credible attempt at sniggering, another one of those pesky Dawn attributes coming through.

"You forget, before we left Caesaron I was upgraded. We got the new hyper-drive. And at those speeds time is relative. Even travelling with the latest hyper technology science hasn't quite managed to eliminate the light effect. Time passes faster for those left behind than for those doing the travelling. I know scientists on Centauri stated they were on the verge of a breakthrough, but that point is mute now."

"Okay, never mind the whole time thing. There must be something that caused those planets to fail."

"No further information."

Buffy frowned, something was tugging at her senses, the feeling of wrongness overwhelming.

"Do those planets have anything in common?"

V2 muttered to itself - more for her sake than anything else.

"Founding dates are plus minus a hundred years. No real religious similarities. Politics friendly but not close."

The A.I. Worked through climate, geography, environmental differences, all the basics with no similarities coming up bar the one, that they were capable of sustaining human life.

"D'you think its an alien threat?" Buffy was almost afraid to ask, but then refuted her own statement in almost the same breath. "No, unlikely. First to fail was a planet deep in occupied space. Alien invasion would makes sense for a frontier planet. But none of these are on the rim."

She listened as V2 ran her way through any variable she could come up with. And everything came up blank.

It was times like these that Buffy missed Giles with an almost physical ache, a vital part of her missing. He'd been good at finding similarities, plucking them seemingly out of thin air.

"In fact." V2's voice cut through her thoughts. "The only thing they have in common is that you visited them in an official capacity prior to our trip into fairy demon land."

"I remember that. We were establishing closer relations and those planets wanted us to send fighters to protect their planets. They never did tell us what had them so spooked. I left before troop displacement took place." She trailed off once more as the truth hit her.

"V2, extend a hypothetical line linking the affected planets." She watched as a pale red line spread out between the planets and projected out from either end, one finally ending in a black hole in the Procion system and the other passing smack dab through the centre of the Caesaron system.

"It's after us." she whispered. "How much longer till we reach occupied space?"

"At top speed two days our time and one month Caesaron time."

"Do it and send a burst to Dawn. Tell her what we know and to get out and get back to the source. She's to take a portal if she has to. She's not safe." It killed her to order her sister to use her portal power knowing what it did to her every time she used it, but they had no choice.

"And try to raise high command on Caesaron. They need to be warned."

Now there was nothing to do but wait. Wait for more news. Wait for the time to fight.

The ship dropped into the system unnoticed by the fleet surrounding the central planets. Sliding into the astroid belt that was all that was left of the tenth planet of the system it hid away for one standard week, electrical and magical sensors probing the system, cataloguing troop movements.

The finally, like a bird of prey stooping for the kill, it slingshot out of the belt and raced towards Caesaron, sliding in under the fleet's sensors and landed on the southern continent, hiding away in one of the deep ravines traversing the highest mountain range there.

Reams of light swirled around the little ship, flecks of green and red fluttering like glow-worms until bit by bit the ship faded into the background. A swirl of brown, a touch of black, yellows and purple and it became one with the rocky landscape, until even someone standing right on top of it would be unaware of its existence.

Inside a deadly anger roiled.

"Casualty rates are at sixty percent. Remaining Caesaron energy signatures are centred in camps around the capital city." V2's voice had lost all traces of humanity, reverting back to mechanical detachments, emotional subroutines unable to cope with the reality of a war torn planet.

Buffy stared at the pictures with a stony expression all emotions locked down and away. Spike had tld her a long time before that she was the most passionate fighter he had ever had the fortune to fight. The watcher's council had deplored the same qualities. Now, Buffy had finally reached a compromise. She could plan, coldly and analytically and the let loose in battle, all her fear and fury and ferocious grief channelled into destroying the people responsible in killing the children of her heart.

Hell would have no fury.

Going into the weapons room, Buffy took stock, mentally already decided what to take and what to leave.

Walking over to the one wall that held a single weapon, she stared at the scythe. Her gift from the guardians. It had remained with her for all these years, humming to her touch like nothing else under the suns. A living extension of her body at times it was the best weapon she had ever had the pleasure of using.

Twirling it lightly in the muted light of the room, it still responded to her every thought, despite not having been used for over a century. She slid a single finger along its length avoiding the wicked blade, making it hum as if she was playing a wine glass. It wanted to come out to play, sang with contentment that it would finally be put to use once more to strike down her enemies.

Shifting her grip to the handle, a tiny part of her thrilled to the rightness of it all, slayer and weapon reunited once more.

The harness was quickly donned and Buffy changed her stance imperceptively to accommodate the slight increase in weight. Next came the bag Willow had spelled to be practically bottomless. Sometimes watching the Disney marathon on TV brought up good ideas. She filled it with more weapons, though no guns, ration bars and basic first aid. There was only one thing left to do.

"V2. I want you to stay here."

"Yes, Buffy."

"Assemble data. And if I have not contacted you in three standard months, I want you to leave."

"No." Buffy cringed, as the A.I.'s voice rose in a perfect imitation of Dawn when she had said the same thing on top of Glory's tower.

"Yes. You are staying here. And if I am not back you will leave and contact our allies. Somebody has to be left and somebody has to be told."

"No, I can help." It was times like this that Buffy hated the computer being so humanoid

"You can help by doing this for me. Somebody has to know and you will tell them."

It took her three weeks to cross over to the main continent. Buffy arrived at the capital city just in time to see the aftermath of the Furyan's last stand. Her heart lay in her chest like a millstone, as she stared down at the carnage below.

Necromongers gingerly stepped among the bodies strewn around the compound, poking them with their spears and boots, looking for survivors, fakers. Waded through the ankle-deep mud that shimmered with an oily red glaze.

She watched as their enemy began to haphazardly pile up the bodies for later incineration, throwing around her kith and kin as if they were merely broken toys that needed to be disposed of. The slayer in her chomped at the bit begging to be let out to play, to jump down among the enemies in a whirl of silver death. The girl in her held her frozen in place, too numb to move, too shocked to deal. The war between her two selves, one to fight, the other to hide and grieve, waged silently within her, only evident in the shudders racking her body.

Then both sides stilled as the soldiers below screamed in terror. Rising from the blood and gore like Aphrodite from the foam there stood a Furyan woman. Clasped in her hand a bloody knife, hair matted and snarled.

Buffy watched silently as the woman who looked so much like her called for vengeance. Listened as she called for her, Buffy, the Lady of the Summer, to avenge their people.

And jumped like a startled deer when the shot rang out that felled the woman mid-word, dropping her among her friends and family. Reunited once more in death.

The slayer took one last glance at the valley and limped away. She had been called. There was vengeance to perform and necros to kill.

Guerrilla tactics worked well for her, leading small bands into tight corners and destroying them in a whirlwind of violence, blood and gore. She lost herself in the mad dash of it, giving the slayer free reign for the first time in forever. Feeding off the fear that oozed from her enemies' pores. No quarter was given, nor asked for.

Days bled into weeks as she continued stacking the bodies, picking at their lines never striking the same places twice. And yet they still came. Each fallen man replaced by another and another in never-ending waves.

Doggedly she continued, fighting, running, fighting some more. She lost track of time, vaguely aware of the full moon's passing, days bleeding into night and nights into days. All that mattered was the fight, the hunt, the kill.

And then she found them. De'Rhen's granddaughter, who through some genetic quirk looked so much like Buffy herself. And with her a young boy, seven at most, who had snuck out on a forbidden hunting trip just before the necros had landed and killed everything in their path.

It snapped Buffy out of the killing zone faster than she could believe and gave her something to fight for once more. Something she could focus on when self-disgust and despair threatened to overwhelm her.

Determined to whisk them away to safety, that maybe her people could survive, she led her tiny group back south. There was still some time left to meet up with V2 and they could flee, maybe make it to safety with the elementals.

The necromancers found them though and like hunting dogs pushing the fox before their race, they chased them relentlessly and endlessly. Driving Buffy and her survivors in front of them until fatigue made the boy drop in his tracks unable to continue.

Grimly aware of their fate, they retreated to a gully bordered by high cliffs. The necromancers would be forced to come at them one by one. They could beat them. For a while anyway.

Forcing her frantic heartbeat to calm through sheer force of will, Buffy turned to face her compatriots. "This is it. This is where we make our stand." Her audience's faces were carefully bland, but she didn't let that deter her. She knew a coping mechanism when she saw it. They had been through so much in the past months it was a wonder they were not gibbering idiots.

"They send these cowards after us as if we were common criminals. Honourless scum I call them. Let them come. We shall fight and make them remember what it is to face a Furyan in battle."

From behind tired eyes she smiled at them, memories flitting back to lighter days. "What is the first rule of combat?"

The answer came as one. "Don't die!"

It was easier said than done. The necromancers sent wave after wave at them, wearing them down bit by bit. The ground grew slick with blood under foot, making it hard to gain a grip, the slipping and sliding adding to the strain put on their systems.

The boy was the first to fall, wearied by lack of sleep and food. One minute he was there at Buffy's side, dancing in with his little knife and doing his best to keep up, to do his race proud. And the next he lay gasping for air at her feet, chest split open from neck to navel. The necromonger who had finally managed to get in the lucky shot lay dead beside them the little knife protruding from his left eye.

One last gasp escaped from lips stained cherry pink with blood and the little boy passed into the night.

His death galvanised the two women and sent them into a dervish dance of death that held them for a few more precious hours, until De'Rhen's last surviving granddaughter fell beneath the onslaught.

And then it was Buffy's turn. Weeks of running and fighting and hiding had taken their toll on her. Fatigue and sorrow led to a fall in concentration and allowed one necromonger to get inside her defence. And that was all they needed. She stared down in disbelief at the pesky mortal wound and the necros closed in on her.

The next few minutes were a haze of agony for Buffy as she lay in a hail of blows and kicks, wondering why they did not just kill her.

When it finally stopped she lay in defeat, every breath aggravating her broken ribs, and stared into the eyes of her captor. Buffy blinked as darkness threatened to swamp her vision, vaguely recognising the man as one of the men from the camp. He looked down at her in triumph, eyes glittering with victory.

Well, she refused to give him that pleasure and with her last ounce of strength grasped the pendant around her neck, smearing her heart's blood onto it, the blood she shared with her sister, the key of Dagon. Even as consciousness eluded her and she felt the sharp pull of Willow's spell tear her away in a flash of white light, she was filled with an overwhelming sense of failure.

She couldn't save her people. The Furyans were no more. There was no-one left bar her and she couldn't even avenge them. There was nothing left. Her people were lost.

And then she knew no more.

The girl whimpered like an animal caught in a trap. Tremors racked her swollen body, tearing through her as she lay gasping, hidden away in a corner of a dirty alley somewhere on a backwater planet nobody in their right mind would waste a single thought on.

She resented the life trying to force its way from her loins with a passion she had never felt before. Had tried to rid herself of the burden it represented any way she knew how. For who would want a whore with a snivelling child clutching her apron. And yet it had clung to her insides persistently, stubbornly refusing to give in, adamant it would live, would survive.

Now the girl just wanted it all to be over, prayed for it with every fibre of her being.

She was a slight little thing, dwarfed by the almost grotesque swell of her belly. She had no name ot speak of, answered to whatever her suitors cared to call her. Her colouring was non-descript, but something was there. Some spark life had not managed to beat out of her yet. A spark that had called to the off-worlder. The hulk of a man who had been so gentle to her. Who had left her with more money than she had agreed to in the beginning. She had praised him then, just as she had cursed him some weeks later when it became apparent that despite precautions he had left her with more than an extra fifty credits.

A final push ripped through her body and she could, for the first time, stare down at the wiggling worm of humanity flailing its arms between her legs, umbilical cord remaining a tangible link between them.

It choked for a second before lustily wailing its zest for life out to its uncaring mother. Almost without thinking her hand hovered over its mouth and nose. If she killed it then Derc would surely take her back. She could tell him the thing had been stillborn. Nobody would ever know. It would be so easy.

Slowly she covered the baby's face. A final defiant wail swept through the alley and this time was heard.

"Halt! Who goes there?"

In fright she jumped up, spilling the baby on to the ground, but blood loss weakened her and she fell beside her child and knew no more until she woke in the town's holding cell on trial for attempted murder.

The baby had, surprisingly, survived its abrupt and rough tumble to the ground and was bundled off to the town orphanage, every life being precious on this harsh planet. In honour of its rescuers the little boy was named Richard Bartimäus. And after much debate his surname would forever commemorate the alley in which he had been born and found.

Six years later Richard B. Riddick disappeared from the orphanage and the planet.


	7. Beginnings

A/N: I almost daren't show my face. Especially after I saw how long it has been since I last updated this. So please forgive me. It was a combination of unfortunate events, a large part of which was that I realised that I was already five chapters and countless thousands of words into my story _without my main characters even meeting, let alone sharing a scene!_

So I thought, right this chapter will be it, this is when they meet. Well , you will see for yourself eventually what happened to that little idea.

In this chapter we explore how little Richard B Riddick became one of the most feared men in the galaxy. This presents a bit of a problem. We all know what Riddick is like. He distrusts pretty much everyone and it could even be argued that he hates the rest of humanity. The question is why. I don't want to go down the cliché road of him being tortured and abused as a child, cause I think that is too easy. If some of my developments start sounding similar to Jayne's progression in _'Let sleeping mercenaries lie' _ then I apologise in advance. This is not meant as an infringement, there just aren't that many different ways to go about this.

Another reason why this took so long.

Still no end in sight by the way. :)

Oh and a lot of the swearing is in afrikaans. I think it is obvious from context though.

**Beginnings**

"Come back here you little skelem!" The shopkeeper's rotund face was red with fury. He was too heavy to put up much of a chase, but had to at least try. That had been the third time that week that the little shit had snuck in and stolen bread.

The little figure pelting down the street, two loaves of bread clutched firmly to his chest, ignored him completely, preferring to get away before the do-dos came. R.B. wasn't stopping for nobody. He had friends to get back to and letting that lardass of a baker get hold of him so he could hand him over to the 'thorities wasn't part of the plan.

The others were waiting. They hadn't eaten in a couple of days, but now they could feast.

The loaves of bread were a warm weight against his chest and he made sure not to grip too hard for fear of crumbling his precious cargo before he could get it to safety and the others.

Behind him he could still hear the heavy, off-beat footsteps of the baker, shouting at the top of his lungs to stop the thief. Fortunately he was so out of breath the words were practically unintelligible, Diving into an alley at the last moment RB legged it to the other side and then casually strolled out, not even out of breath. He walked straighter, cap on properly, loaves now tucked under one arm,, for all the world a young boy out on an errand for his mother.

Walking leisurely down the sidewalk, sidestepping around other shoppers and stands, RB slowly began to make his very roundabout way home, where his two mates were no doubt waiting for him.

The three of them were family, or as close to it as you could get on the streets where a life was worth only as much as you had in your pockets and often not even that. Three children, scraping by, avoiding the law, living from one day to the next. RB, JJ and Half-pint. They had circled each other like wild dogs, wary to the last of betrayal. Had eventually found an equilibrium and then a home of sorts.

The capital had many hidden places, whole quarters that had been nigh on destroyed in the wars of the last decades. Often the owners of the sites were simply gone and the survivors had enough to do getting their own homes back in shape, never mind rebuild unclaimed land.

It was a haven not just for RB and his friends. The area teemed with shady life, thieves, robbers, brothels and sweat shops, hidden away in out of the way nooks and crannies unless you knew what you were looking for, or could read the subtle signs.

An abundance of secret passages existed, half broken down houses that led into over-grown back yards and more houses. Once you made it this far, no-body would find you unless you wanted them to.

Nevertheless just to be on the safe side RB backtracked a few times, walking in decreasing circles, along the tops of the walls and through gardens, all the while getting closer and closer to the former cultural centre of the city, the old theatre.

The formerly magnificent domed building now rose above the ruins like an aged doyenne raising her skirts to avoid soiling them with mud.

The dome had long since crashed in upon itself, leaving the former auditorium and stage open to the elements. The lead tiles had been stolen from the rest of her roof, letting rain in and other things. It was dank and dark, borderline dangerous, but it was home to RB and his friends.

Inside the back levels of the theatre it was dark, the odd glimmer of light working its way through chinks in the boarded up windows, only serving to highlight the abyssal atmosphere instead of lighten it. The massive room, used to store props in the glory days, was now full of junk, stacked to the ceiling with boxes and boxes of costumes, wigs, dried and cracked make-up. In between old sets shoved in odd corners, there was the head of a papier-mâché dragon, eyes glinting a dull purple in the gloom.

RB picked his way past the obstacles with near-blind confidence, walking past the odds and ends as if they didn't exist. Rounding a corner a vista suddenly opened before him. Anybody else would have stopped and stared, arrested by the vision of a large gas planet rising behind a sun-drenched landscape, the sun shining almost blindingly from behind, bathing everything in glaring light. And in the shadows of rocks and holes crept barely seen monsters, nature red in tooth and claw.

RB was not so affected, seeing not the terrible beauty but the hours it had taken to get the fracking thing unrolled and put up for the single purpose of slowing any pursuit.

He slipped by it and behind, through a crack hidden in the darkness at the edges. The backdrop was only the first line of defence, the others less flamboyant, better hidden, tripwires and mazes, tunnels and tightropes. RB traversed it all with ease. He never accidentally tripped a trap or missed a turn that would leave you walking in circles until somebody came to get you.

The other two regarded his skills with benevolent envy, his eyesight and sense of balance. Sometimes they wondered what made him different, but mostly they had other things to worry about. Like food.

Deeper and deeper he walked into the maze, ears perked for any noise that didn't belong. Nothing piqued his senses or interest. They were safe. Finally after five more minutes of ducking and dodging he saw a light at the end of the tunnel. Literally, for somebody had lit a single candle and placed it in the middle of their slightly ramshackle table.

RB felt warmth burst in him. Today was a good day. They had food, warmth and shelter. What more did a boy need?

The sun shone down brilliantly from the blue skies far above, illuminating every last corner of the canyon, highlighting in shades of white the yellows, oranges and browns of the rock walls and floor.

It was noon and there was nowhere for the little lizard to hide. It had been patiently stalked by the bird for the last hour as it darted from rock to rock, oblivious to the predator on its tracks. All the bird had to do was wait, wait for the lizard to come close enough that it could catch it in its sharp beak. Dimly the bird was aware that it did this because it had four chicks waiting for it in their nest high on the cliff face and that lizards made better food than the little moths and ants that were much more abundant. Of course the bird didn't think in these terms, it simply saw a moving shape that fit the prey schemata in its head and acted accordingly.

Beady black eyes watched as the little green lizard darted forward another few steps, now almost close enough to be caught. The bird quivered with anticipation, forcibly restraining itself of darting forward while the lizard was so close to shelter.

Another step, and another brought the lizard ever closer to its doom. The bird was coiling in on itself as it prepared to lunge, when there was first the hard clap of displaced air and then the thump of a body on stone.

The lizard scuttled back into the shelter of the rock face, disappearing down a crack and the bird squawked in shocked displeasure as it fluttered up and settled on a protruding ledge, chattering its displeasure to the uncaring air.

Minutes progressed with nothing else happening. The body did not move and slowly the tantalising odour of blood permeated the air of the canyon with its sickly sweet smell.

The bird cocked its head to the side. Dead meat was a rich source of protein and already it would be calling in scavengers from miles around. Gaze darting from sky to ground to meat, it catiously moved forward. Hop by hop it came closer.

A low groan emerged and the bird flew off again, to come to rest on a nearby bush, closer than before. It watched as small glitters sparkled to life around the body, and it slowly, haltingly rose into the air and disappeared in the cliff face.

RB entered their haven quietly, wanting to surprise the other two with his good news. Two loaves of good bread would last them several days. And Half-pint really needed the food, he was only seven, skittish and shy, never saying what had made him run away from home at the age of barely six. RB had a good idea what it had been that had made him run like the hounds of hell were after him. There was only one thing that made a kid that skittish around adults, men in particular.

As he walked towards the light, RB could just see JJ, the third member of their little family. The boy was around 15 and taller in a gangly way. Blond hair framed a round face with piercing blue eyes. He too had run away from a home where the men were just a little too touchy-feely, but where it had made Half-pint shy and skittish, it had turned JJ hard and brittle, ready to crack at any moment. Slightly worrying to RB, but they needed somebody older who could help deal with anybody who tried to come take over their home.

RB threw off his worries, there was nothing he could do about it now anyway, and they had food! Much more important. If JJ really was loosing it, then he would take Half-pint and relocate. There were other places to hide in the city. He rounded the last corner and say JJ sitting at the table in the light of the candle, his back to him.

"Guess what I got, JJ. Man, Darblass was so slow today, like a pottamus, lumbering along. Got two loaves of bread from him and none of that brown shit, this is the real white…." RB trailed off, as he came fully into the room. JJ wasn't alone. About seven burly men were standing in the shadows and corners of the room where they weren't immediately apparent.

Instinctively RB turned in a whirl, bread falling to the floor forgotten, intent on finding Half-pint and getting the hell out of there. A heavy hand fell on his shoulder before he could make a run for it and though he scratched and bit, there was no way he could hold his own against grown men. In next to no time he was trussed up like a grackle-bird for roasting, unable to move or make a sound.

"This is not what you promised us. A scrawny boy instead of what we came for."

RB blinked. What the hell was the goon talking about.

JJ lifted his head, eyes bleary and unfocused in a way only first-grade helldust could make it. RB felt sickened inside, feeling like he should have known JJ was taking to more than the occasional booze to forget his past.

"I told you, he's coming. Likes to watch the sundown on the roof."

As soon as he realised who the thugs were looking for, RB went wild, screaming futilely into his gag and rocking around the floor as he raged against his bonds. A blinding sharp pain to his head and he fell into darkness.

The cave had been a contingency plan. Heavily warded it lay in the depths of the Grand Canyon on the former American Continent. At the time of its conception, Willow and her coven had simply wanted to create a safe house for the Scoobies. Somewhere they could go if the worst came to the worst. They had borrowed heavily from various books of the time, making it unpalatable for all known forms of magic. It had an ignore me spell in place, even knowing where it was, it could take three tries to make it inside.

Unless of course you had one of the original ward stones keyed to the detection spell.

It had hung, forgotten, around Buffy's neck for centuries, until the time when she had truly needed it and triggered the spell that delivered you straight to the front door.

Buffy of course had been unceremoniously dropped just outside the entrance, her wounds too extensive for her to be anything but blessedly unconscious and completely unable to drag herself inside where there was shelter and aid to be had.

Provisions for cases such as this had been made, too, though and the old spells kicked in, transporting her body safely and slowly inside, laying her to rest on the stone slab that sat in the centre of the cave.

The cave had been well chosen, Xander's extensive knowledge of building and foundations coming in handy, as he searched for a site that would withstand the pressures of time. An effort he redoubled once it became apparent what side effects Willow's resurrection spell had had on the lead slayer.

Maybe it had been guilt for his part in the whole thing, or maybe just a friend looking out for another. Whatever it had been, in the end, he had found what they had all been looking for.

In this place, where solid granite had welled up from the earth's core, providing a massive outcropping, that the Colorado river had only been able to find away around and then relegate to a forgotten side canyon of the main system. It was more than thirty feet above the river itself, well above the height of normal floods and if the waters rose too high ,then the spells in place were well able to mimic solid rock, so that the installation itself remained uncompromised. No one would ever say that Willow did anything but give her best.

In the interest of posterity and longevity, the interior was minimalist, choosing stone over less durable material, the tables and beds rising from the stone floor as if grown that way. It was Spartan, but served its purpose.

Or did at one point in the past anyway, now long years of disuse has eroded the spells Willow had so carefully crafted into the walls of the cave. Slowly but surely over the centuries, their effectiveness deteriorated, until the time came when the slayer was dropped into the middle of them and they were required to do what Willow had asked of them to do. Save her life.

And they did.

It was only moments later that RB came to slowly to the sound of petrified screaming. He felt muzzy and dizzy, eyes blurred, but widening, when he realised that in the meantime Half-pint had come down from wherever he liked to hide during the day, one skinny, white arm now in the firm grip of the man RB liked to think of as thug number one.

With a pop sound came back just in time for the head guy to say: "Let's see if it really is who you say it is."

Half-pint's screams took on a new, different note of fear, but his struggles were in vain as the man ruthlessly tore away his clothes and two things became apparent. He was a she, and the tattoo on her hip marked her as a member of the highest levels of society.

The head guy made a mocking bow, placing his jacket over the girl's shoulders as he spoke: "Right honour to meet you, Persephone Alassia von Schleyer. Your father has missed you and is most anxious you be returned to his tender and above all loving care."

At his words Half-pint, no Persephone, slumped in on herself, all fight gone from her body.

RB could only watch as Persephone was bundled up further and carried out of the door.

The head guy turned to JJ and now that RB was able to, he saw the things he should have noticed right at the beginning. Like the fact that the head guy was very well dressed for some random thug off the street and that there were insignia on his sleeve that marked him as a member of the government.

He watched with avid eyes, taking in every detail, as the man, distaste evident in every line of his body, threw a moneybag on the table that clinked with the heavy sound of platinum.

"There you go. Finders fee, as promised. We'll take the other one as well. Drop him off at juvenile hall."

He stepped back and waved for one of the remaining men to pick up RB.

The boy grunted as he was thrown over one hard shoulder, the grinned ferally as the move knocked his gag loose and he could spit it out.

"I'm going to waste you JJ. Just you wait and see. D'you hear me? Waste you!"

The men laughed at the rage vibrating through so small a body. One of them gave him a hard cuff round the ear that had him seeing stars and then he was carried off, leaving JJ behind in his little circle of light.

Ten years later RB walked out of juvenile hall in time to hear that the governor's beloved daughter Persephone had thrown herself from her bedroom window on the eve of her sixteenth birthday. Scandal had it that she had been in the family way at the time.

JJ, last anybody had heard, had joined the military and was known as Lieutenant Johns by then.

Buffy slept in peace as the decades passed, the spells slowly working their way through her body, aiding her slayer psyche in healing the many grievous wounds inflicted on her body.

There she lay in limbo, a space age sleeping beauty as time passed around her and galaxies away the last scion of her line grew to manhood.


	8. Fools rush in

A/N: I know this is short, but a) I wanted to update and b) it fit like this. :)

**Fools rush in**

The Man who walked out of juvenile hall, or at least the workhouse portion of it, had nothing in common anymore with the boy that had been thrown in so many years before. The young boy had died along the way and from the ashes arose Rick, a tall man with long arms and legs, carrying the potential for violence with him like a cloak. Long hours in the workhouse had built strength and endurance, and left him with the promise of a truly imposing physique.

The volatile atmosphere in there had also honed his fighting and survival skills. The inmates were constantly feuding and you either fought back or lay down and died. RB had fought, scrabbling and clawing his way to a reputation that made all but the most stupid think twice about challenging him.

And he intended to use those skills to their full extent and revenge the girl he had known as Half-pint. He had never forgotten the look of absolute terror on her face when she realised she would be taken back to what she had run away from.

Rick had heard things in the workhouse about their oh so virtuous governor. He liked kids. A LOT. Too much. And his daughter had held a special place in his heart, or so the servants said.

Rick had been too late to save Half-pint, that moment had come and gone ten years before, but he would do his damn best to avenge her and kill every son of a bitch that had been involved, starting with her father.

Six weeks after he had first walked out of juvie, Rick was no closer to his objective than he had been the moment he first stepped foot into freedom.

Security was tight around the governor and no ex-street rat would ever be able to get a job in the compound, not when there were so many more 'deserving and well-connected' young men to choose instead of him.

It was endlessly frustrating to him and twice already all that emotion had boiled up and led to brawls with the palace guards and a six-day stay in goal to cool his heels. If that happened a third time he would be looking at one to three for violating public peace.

Apparently the high-pitched screams that could be heard from the governor's palace every night didn't constitute a disturbance of the peace.

"Humanity makes me sick." he muttered to himself, as he once more stared at the palace doors, from his vantage point of the inn on the other side of the square.

"Oh the folly of youth." The crusty voice seemed to come from right beside him and he spun in surprise. At the table behind him sat a hairless, toothless old geezer with only one eye. One eye that twinkled with more than a little amused condescension. Rick pointedly turned his back.

"You're looking' mighty hard at them guards. Much like a dog'd look at a bitch in heat."

Rick gritted his teeth, determined not to give into the urge to turn around and shove the geezer's walking stick down his dried up crusty old throat.

"Is it that you're sly, boy? Damn shame, strappin' lad liken yourself. Girls must be three-deep at yer feet an you with a hankerin' for nice men in uniform." The cackling laugh rpoved too much for Rick and he turned with a snarl, best 'don't fuck with me face' in place.

"Watch it old man."

"Or you'll what?" The twinkle was gone and all of a sudden the old man didn't look quite so old or harmless as before. The look in his eyes chilled Rick to the bone. It was slightly crazed and filled with fury. Rick wasn't a stupid man. And so he simply turned away without a word, stood up and left, shouldering his way through the market day crowd and losing himself in the masses.

The nightair was dry and hot, dust heavy on the ground. Rick stood in his usual hiding place just outside the palace walls in a deep well of shadows, listening to the pained wails and pleas that sang out from the east wing and winged their way through the night.

It made him sick. This part of town was mostly commercial, few lived here. And those that did, or whose job took them here at night, watchmen and guards, knew better than to notice anything not in their job description.

A glimmer of movement alerted him to the fact that the guards were changing again. On nights like this, when the governour was indulging himself, they changed more frequently. Maybe they found it difficult to listen to their Lord's pleasure. Not that it made them do anything about it.

The frequent, unexpected guard changes would make infiltrating this place at night even more difficult than he had anticipated.

"Well, at least we know you're patient and can hold your temper in check."

The voice behind him, had Rick jumping a foot in the air, heart pumping double time in his chest. He hadn't heard anybody approach!

"Not too observant, though and a mite jumpy."

Turning he saw the old man from the café standing behind him. Except the stick was gone, he seemed to have all his teeth and a patch covered the shattered ruin of his eye.

"What do you want old man?"

"The question shouldn't be, what do I want, but what do you want?" The man eyed Rick up and down after his cryptic statement.

Rick was confused. Who was this guy? He didn't know why, but his instincts told him to be honest.

"I want to go in there and kill the governor with my bare hands."

If he thought this statement would shock the other man, he was sorely mistaken. His counterpart merely nodded.

"Commendable aim. How?"

Rick gaped at him, that was the last response he had been expecting.

"Was gonna join the guards, but they don't take none right out of juvie. Days is too busy. Was now seein' if there'n be a way in at night."

"Hmm, using your brain." The man frowned into the distance. "You'll do. I'll teach you."

"Teach me what?" Rick scoffed.

The man smirked and then from one second to the other was simply gone.

Rick glanced around in consternation, only to freeze as cold metal appeared at his neck, raising him on his toes as the blade bit into his neck, raising drops of blood to glide along the slick edge.

"How to be a fucking ghost." 


End file.
